Sales are the bloodline of your business. Today’s digital consumerism has affected market preferences, consumer behaviors, and sales strategy. A highly objective approach to selling to today’s well-informed consumers may still work to a certain extent, but these days consumers respond more to intuitive selling.
Learn how improving your social and emotional intelligence can help grow sales.
The Importance of Social and Emotional Intelligence to Sales
In sales, social and emotional intelligence are significant success factors that can get overlooked. Having the ability to sense, appreciate, and successfully use the influence of their own feelings while interacting with the client can help boost sales rather than upset them. Asking the right questions and positioning themselves as someone to be trusted can gain them leverage.
Active listening skills
Listening is the key to understanding customer needs. Sometimes, prospective clients do not know what they want, and it takes a good conversation with an intuitive salesperson to identify their needs.
Active listening is beneficial as it helps close in high-value products like insurance, cars, and houses. Through effective conversations, you can relay the right message to the prospective client and educate your client without causing cognitive overload. But active listening does take time and training to learn.
Decreased reaction
Customer behavior can influence your attitude. For instance, an irate client can cause you to lose control and react negatively. You may raise your voice, utter sarcastic remarks, or walk out of the conversation. Such reactive behaviors are a nonstarter in sales.
People with a high emotional quotient (EQ) turn out to be better salespeople, as they are more responsive and less reactive to aversive customer behaviors. They take criticism well and possess higher self-awareness. Because they better understand and relate to their customers, they offer better service and close better deals.
Assertiveness and resilience
Selling is not for the fainthearted. You must fight tooth and nail to drive revenue in a highly competitive industry. You may be months with unreturned cold calls – a disheartening situation that tests your patience and grit.
Socially and emotionally intelligent individuals know better than to quit. Their level of assertiveness and resilience is high enough to continue forging on – generating leads and pitching to prospective clients.
Empathy
Empathy is being able to feel for others. It is proven to be associated with high EQ. Studies show that empathetic individuals are better communicators and leaders – traits necessary in selling, which are both art and science.
Team Up with the ACE Group to Increase Gross Profit
Not everyone has the gift of combined social and emotional intelligence. But that does not mean that you cannot sell. With the right training, your business will see an acceleration in profits and performance.
The ACE Group is a leading automotive consultancy that offers comprehensive training to our partners to help grow their sales. We train your team about the value of social and emotional skills to increase efficiency, productivity, and profit.
Learn more about these skills that can contribute to your business growth. Contact us for more details on sales training.